© dpa
Holiday swimming courses for around 6,500 children
More than 6,500 children in Berlin learned to swim or improved their swimming skills in intensive courses during the school holidays this year. more
© dpa
Housing construction in Berlin and other building projects are to be accelerated.
To this end, the Senate has passed a draft "Schneller Bauen Gesetz" (Faster Construction Law) and forwarded it to the House of Representatives for further consultation. The legislative package includes several dozen measures to speed up the preparation and implementation of housing construction projects in particular - until now, this has often taken several years.
Among other things, planning and approval procedures are to be streamlined and standardised, review and processing deadlines introduced and responsibilities between state and district level more clearly regulated. The state level is to be given more influence over certain procedures. Another aim of the new regulations is to provide building owners with more reliable information about when planning permission can be expected so that they can plan better.
Urban Development Senator Christian Gaebler (SPD) spoke of a milestone for the acceleration of construction in Berlin. The legislative package will now be discussed further in the House of Representatives and then finalised there. According to Gaebler, it should come into force by December.